Melissa gave a sharp, irritated laugh through the door.
“We have children, Morgan. We’re up early. Don’t be difficult.”
There it was.
Don’t be difficult.
The same sentence I’d heard in a hundred different forms since I was six years old.
Ezoic
Don’t be difficult.
Don’t embarrass your father.
Your sister needs you.
It’s easier if you just give her what she wants.
For most of my life, I’d obeyed.
Not anymore.
My name is Morgan Reese. I’m thirty-eight years old.
My house stands on an isolated stretch of the North Carolina coast. South of Corolla on the Outer Banks. At the end of a sand road where the pavement gives up. Surrounded by sea grass and pale dunes and nothing else for half a mile in either direction. In front of it, the Atlantic. Gray-green and endless.
Four bedrooms. Cedar shingles gone silver from the salt. A wraparound porch. A kitchen with a long window over the sink where you can watch the pelicans skim the waves in the morning.
